Taking the Liberty of Incivility: Workplace Bullying in Higher Education

• Date: 01 March 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21181
• Author: Jamie Lee Gloor
• Published date: 01 March 2014

Taking the Liberty of Incivility:

Workplace Bullying in Higher

Education

Workplace Bullying in Higher Education, edited by Jamie Lester. New York,

NY: Routledge, 2013. ISBN-13: 978-0-415-51965-6; 164 pages; $41.95

(paperback).

Workplace bullying is becoming an increasingly popular topic in research (see

Branch, Ramsay, & Barker, 2013) and the media (e.g., Time, Belsky, 2013; and

the Wall Street Journal, Silverman, 2013), perhaps refl ecting public awareness

of bullying as both prevalent and problematic. According to Einarsen, Hoel,

Zapf, and Cooper (2010), bullying is:

… harassing, offending, or socially excluding someone or negatively

affecting someone’s work … repeatedly and regularly (e.g., weekly) and

over a period of time (e.g., about 6 months). Bullying is an escalating

process in the course of which the person confronted ends up in an inferior

position and becomes the target of systematic negative social acts. (p. 22)

Workplace bullying poses a growing challenge for HRD professionals, who

may be influential in measuring and monitoring uncivil (Reio & Ghosh,

2009) and bullying behaviors (Salin, 2003) in the workplace, including iden-

tifying potential antecedents and outcomes (Reio & Ghosh, 2009; Salin,

2003), or informing relevant educational training programs and policies (see

Salin, 2008). A specifi c area of employment in which bullying has been con-

sistently documented, manifesting in various forms and across positional hier-

archies, is higher education. A specific resource outlining research and

practical information, issues, and interventions relevant to bullying in higher

education is Workplace Bullying in Higher Education (2013), edited by Jamie

Lester, PhD.

Overview of the Text

A compilation of empirical work, case studies, and practical experience, this

recently published volume includes nine chapters on the subject of workplace

bullying in American institutions of higher education (i.e., community

MEDIA REVIEW

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 25, no. 1, Spring 2014 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21181 121